Acer Iconia Tab W500
Aimed squarely at those of us who simply don’t see the point of Android or iOS, Acer’s Iconia Tab W500 is a Windows 7 Home Premium slate complete with decent graphics, a handy detachable keyboard, a sizeable chunk of storage and a realistic, if not cheap, price tag of £520. Acer Iconia W500 Acer's Iconia W500: use it as a …
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Why only 75%?
Given the rating I was expecting some major flaw with this kit. I must have skipped the duff page. OK the benchmarks are on the low side but overall the review is a good one.
I am confused...
Well there is the battery life...
224 minutes maybe average for a laptop, but for a tablet its laughable
And did you see the processor speed?
My phone has a better processor. 1GHz is all right for a smartphone, but something between a laptop and a tablet, this really needs a better processor. 1.5 GHz at least, and 1.8 or 2.0 would be so, so much better.
It's a step in the right direction, but it's still a while out from what I'm looking for...
Yes but
As bilgepipe says below, it has windows on it. I'd not expect day-long battery life on anything with windows (or (trying to be fair) Ubuntu or Suze).
Re: Robert
I can get an easy 8 out of my netbook. Granted, it's a chubby little S.O.B. but still, it's possible. These guys should have taken a page out of the Atrix approach IMO and put a supplementary battery in the keyboard/dock. Seems like it would be weird to have the screen portion of it be heavier than the keyboard/dock when you're not using it on a desk/table.
I think it's a nice try but having spent the last year with a touch-skinned windows phone (HTC Touch Pro 2, which is IMO the absolute flakiest consumer electronic device *EVAR* made) I'd rather wait until the OS natively supports the touch function (so Windows 8?) . Even assuming the skin works as advertised... the lack of an adjustable screen, puny battery life and hefty price are just icing on the cake on this one for me.
Again, I think Acer has some really great ideas that they *almost* get me to bite on. The last was the Revo 100, which probably is a great off-the-shelf HTPC but ridiculously overpriced. Damn it Acer... you're *SOOOOO* close but keep missing the mark
Yes but...
...It has Windows on it. It'll presumably run Linux though.
Tempting
I'm quite tempted, even with windows. I still think it is at least a hundred quid too much. But there is a month to go before deliveries, so anything could happen.
According to the people who loaned it to you it can't do 3G, which seems really odd.
Not sure why the keyboard has to be physically attached. Could it not be blootoof?
I'm taking this one more seriously.
Ethernet over bluetooth isn't all that hot
They need the physical connection for the wired network connection.
They could save a few pennies by leaving that functionality out, but not enough to actually change the retail price, so it wouldn't boost sales.
I like it!
That's more my idea of a portable machine - one that can actually DO stuff rather than just show stuff.
Now for the predictable cry....get Linux on it!
nice idea, but..
Is there a viable touch interface for Linux out there? Serious question - I don't know...
@MN
Is there a viable touch interface for Windows?
Serious question. Last time I tried an XP tablet all the handwriting recognition stuff was part of the apps (notably word) not the OS. seemed rather broken to me.
I seem to recall Ubuntu was working on one...
...but it seems to be abandoned. I'll bet much of their research went into Ubuntu Netbook, though. There are a few other interfaces as well. I can't vouch for any of them, though.
Re : nice idea, but..
"Is there a viable touch interface for Linux out there? Serious question - I don't know..."
..the most obvious reply I could think of would be so say 'swap the W for an A, Google and read the reviews'
Title
"Is there a viable touch interface for Linux out there? Serious question - I don't know..."
Isn't android basically Linux?
Compaq 1100 anyone
Blimey I had one of these years ago.....my trusty Compaq TC1100 running windows XP with a full touch interface - although it needed an active stylus and was a touch slow with a Transmeta processer.
Had all of this though, removable keyboard, virtual keyboard and even a docking station that allowed the screen to be used in portrait or landscape mode and has a CD drive.
Just goes to show - - there's nothing new
But...
But the tablet is a new format and was invented by Apple last year, all those cool people with tablets would have got one beforehand if they'd been available.
Ahem...
benchmarks
It would have been nice to see it benchmarked against the Ipad 1 & 2 and the Xoom.
If manufacturers keep punting these tablets out they have to eventually get it right. It looks like Acer is on the right track at least.
benchmarks?
What for? To see which one can encode xvid fastest? FPS in Crysis perhaps? Will knowing these things tell you which one provides the best user experience given a particular use case?
Intel spent years convincing the blithering masses that more megahurtz equals better. It's good to see they weren't wasting their hard earned . . .
active digitiser
If this had a dual purpose screen, capacitive for when you want to use your fingers and and active digitiser stylus so you can use the windows handwriting support it would be perfect.
Unlike the current crop of tablets it has a proper OS on it and unlike netbooks it has a proper resolution screen.
@Fuzz
Quick correction
"Unlike the current crop of tablets it has a OS I prefer on it"
..there, sorted [0]
[0] Presuming you do prefer it - and of course don't consider QNX, Linux and even iOS (to a point) a "proper OS". Personally, in a "properness" contest between QNX and MS Windows I know which i'd vote for... particularly if it was controlling an industrial complex.
@Tim
To be fair to @Fuzz, the Linux-a-likes installed on most netbooks/tablets are pretty socking. Each OEM stamps on their "brand identity" in order to "differentiate" and "provide added value".
Which translates to "mess it up", "slow it down" and "screw it up".
@TheBigYin
"To be fair to @Fuzz, the Linux-a-likes installed on most netbooks/tablets are pretty socking. "
Oh agreed, absolutely... generally wouldn't touch them with someone elses barge pole. I was thinking about Andriod (for better or worse) on the Linux side, but didn't make that at all clear. Apologies.
FAIL
After 7-8 years of Windows Tablet fail, they launch this. How original.
What is it with these manufacturer lemmings? Or did they listen to the people who want the full OS on a tablet - who have no intention of buying one anyway?
@ArmanX
I see the Intel marketing brainwashed you. The speed doesn't matter a jot, it's how much the processor does per clock cycle. You cannot compare an Arm, Atom, I5 etc etc purely on clock speed.
http://davefaq.com/Opinions/CPU_Performance.html
Doesnt look much cop as a tablet
Seriously hefty, I wouldn't want to hold that up for 4 hours reading a book.
Although, that's moot I suppose, since after 3 and a half of those hours, the battery will be dead.
A work in progress.
There is in fact a deal to like with this in regard to hardware and design. However the point is that it is aimed at those that want to run a full Windows os and whatever one thinks about Win 7 on a conventional pc (I rather like it) it is seriously pony as a table os Plus the fact that the kind of tablet hardware we are anticipating (2 GHz, at least dual core, ARM based) is not going to be available for at least 12 months. Only during the back half of 2012 are we going to begin to see tablet hardware that, IMO, can be regarded as serious. If one wants a tablet running full song with choruses Windows with an acceptable level of performance without battery life that is a joke (for a tablet) then you are going to have to wait for the upcoming hardware developments and Win 8 ARM. It will be a year before a serious Windows tablet will be available. There is, IMV, much that is interesting with this offering from Acer but I am not parting with £500 or so for a system that in reality is at prototype stage.
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